


You Before Me, Me Before You

by cecilia095



Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-08 18:46:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6869065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilia095/pseuds/cecilia095
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't want a plan for everything, Nick. I want stuff to happen, and I want to have to deal with it like a normal person, and it doesn't even matter if you don't have a checking account. Nothing like that matters, and I'm sorry I let it matter so much before."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Before Me

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1/2, because I kind of wanted to break it up instead of squishing it all together and it being like, WHOA too much!!!.
> 
> Anyway, this is my 'If-I-Were-In-Charge-Of-The-Happenings-Of-Ness-In-Season-Six' fic, and I feel like a lot of people are probably writing these/have written these, but I still wanted to contribute. 
> 
> Thank you endlessly to all of you who continuously read what I write. <3 you.

It's been three months -- three months of everyone around Jess all coupled-up; a newly-married Cece and Schmidt, a ridiculously in-love (and ridiculously-loud-at-sex) Aly and Winston. Nick's been coupled-up too, but when Jess thinks about his three months in New Orleans with Reagan, her head starts to spin and Cece has to calm her down.

"Just go to bed, Jess," Cece says, shutting the bathroom light behind she and Jess when they walk out. "You'll see him in the morning."

"Three months, Cece," Jess says, her eyes wide. " _Three months_ ," she repeats, and then she silently hopes she'll never have to spend another three months without Nick again.

Cece has a lot of sympathy in her voice when she goes, "I know, babe."

"I have to tell him tonight, Cece," Jess says, and then Cece says, "I know, babe" again and goes to bed.

Nick walks in the door wearing a ridiculous "I LOVE NOLA" hat and his eyes are tired and it's almost midnight, but she still loves him. She presses her lips together and tries not to look stupidly happy that he's in the living room of their loft for the first time in three months, but she almost jumps off of the couch and squeals his name. "Nick!"

"Jess," he says, a little quieter. He's laughing under his breath, and then he closes the door and leaves his luggage in the hallway. (He won't unpack for weeks, because he's Nick.)

"H-How -- How was it?", she asks, even though New Orleans and Reagan and being in-love are the last things she'd like to talk about with Nick right now. 

"It was... You know, it was good," he says, walking over to the couch and giving her a hug.

"Are you... Where's Reagan?"

"Canada."

"And you're not with her?", Jess questions. She bites down on her lip and tries not to get excited about that.

"I'm kind of... Okay, this is embarrassing, but I'm kind of scared of Canada," he says all too seriously. 

Jess is taken aback by that and starts to deliriously crack up at him. "Nick, you're scared of  _everything_ , but you can't seriously be scared of Canada."

"They drink  _milk_  out of  _bags_ , Jessica. That's scary. Or genius. I haven't figured it out yet."

Jess laughs again, and then she goes, "But you're still with her even if you're not... with her."

Nick swipes underneath his eyes and lets out a sleepy yawn, and then he nods. "I'm finally ready to do this, Jess. Long-distance scares me less than Canada does now. I mean, it's  _Reagan_ , she's amazing."

Jess doesn't doubt it. Reagan is actually kind of amazing; she's smart and cool and beautiful and she doesn't care that Nick doesn't have a life plan or a savings account. 

"How crazy has 4D been without me? Is Winston's cat still alive? Do Cece and Schmidt even  _plan_  on moving out? Hey, how are you holdin' up after the Dr. Sam split? I know we didn't get to talk about it much because of the wedding, and then the -- you know, I left with Reagan, -- but I wanted to tell ya': You deserve someone who won't up and leave with one of their best friends. Next time, you've gotta be his best friend. No Diane's allowed."

Jess gulps at that, and then she retracts the whole little speech she's been spending the last forty-five minutes making up in her head, because there's no way in hell she can tell him any of that now. 

"I missed you, Nick," she says, pulling the throw blanket up over her body.

Nick sits down on the couch next to her, and he pats her knee for a second. "I missed ya' too, kid."

—

Watching Nick in a relationship is one thing, but watching him keep up with a long-distance, different-time-zones, Skype-only relationship is another.

Nick's in the kitchen on Skype with Reagan the next morning, actually eating his cereal like a normal human being and listening her talk about work.

"Nicholas, tell your girlfriend you need to hang up now. It's been three months and I  _just_  got my best friend back," Schmidt says, annoyingly leaning over Nick's laptop and snapping his fingers at him. 

"You don't need me to tag along with you and your wife to look at apartments. I won't be living there, and you don't need to model your guest room after my taste," Nick says, shooing Schmidt away.

" _Fine_ ," Schmidt growls, and then he hears Jess at the fridge grabbing milk and goes, "J! Apartment hunting, two hours, please change out of that shirt."

"Who else is going?", she asks, shutting the fridge door. "Cece's not even here."

"Well, Nick's out because he  _sucks_ ," Schmidt says, leveling a hand at her. "Come on. I'll let you use those ridiculous golf pencils the whole time."

Jess shrugs, and then she figures she'd rather be anywhere than at the loft, listening to Nick on Skype with Reagan for the next however-many hours. "You had me at 'golf pencils'."

"That was the last part of my pitch," he says, rolling his eyes. "But okay!"

So Jess ends up apartment hunting with Schmidt on a Saturday afternoon to avoid Nick, and she doesn't even get to use the damn golf pencils.

"Jess, quit dragging your feet on my future floor," Schmidt says, throwing her a glare as the realtor leads them through an apartment that's way out of the Cece-And-Schmidt-Price-Range. "Hey, wait," he says after a second, tilting his head at Jess. "You're actually not okay. What's wrong? Is it the tile in the kitchen? It was pretty cringe-worthy."

"It's... The curtains," she lies, stopping in the middle of the living room and crossing her arms at her chest. "Okay, no, it's -- Why isn't Cece part of this process? I feel like Cece should be part of this process. I mean, what are you gonna do when it comes time to have a baby, have it for her? Ugh, is it hot in here or is it just me? It's not just me, right?"

Schmidt waves to the realtor and goes, "We'll be right in", and then he shakes his head at Jess. "Hey, you're really not okay. What's wrong?"

"If I tell you, you can't tell anyone, or do anything about it. Only your wife knows, and I've forbidden her from doing anything about it. She owes me from the time she was fawning over you while you were Fawn-ing something else. Ha! Because Fawn Moscato. Get it? I'm good."

"Jess, you know me and puns. Stop avoiding my question. Oh my -- Are you in love with Winston? I know how hard it must be watching him with Aly, but they'll probably break up soon. I mean, how many more pranks can she take?"

"Schmidt."

Schmidt shakes his head and holds his hands up in defeat, then goes, "Okay, so it's not Winston..."

Jess squeezes her eyes shut and lets out a breath, and then she looks around the room to make sure no one else is listening to them until she realizes the only person in this apartment is the realtor and he doesn't give a crap about her love life. "I just don't get why he has to be with Reagan, I guess."

Schmidt looks genuinely upset for her. Like, he forgets about the apartment hunting and the cringe-worthy kitchen tiles and the golf pencils for a good second and he wraps her in this tight hug. "I didn't know, Jess. I thought you closed that door and threw out the key. Maybe even buried it underneath that pile of dirty gym clothes that've been sitting in the corner of Nick's room for six years. That's worse."

"I  _knowww_ , I know, and that's why I'm so upset about all of this," she says, stepping back from Schmidt. "I guess I thought the door was closed, but then I saw him dance with Reagan at your wedding and knew."

"Knew...?"

"Knew what Cece or Sam couldn't answer me about  _the one_ ," she says with wide eyes. "I asked Cece and Sam the night we played True American how they knew you and Diane were the people they wanted to be with for the rest of their lives and they couldn't say anything."

"Nothing?!", Schmidt asks dramatically. "I could write a zombie-novel-sized book on all of the reasons why I know Cece is the one."

"Oh yeah? Try me."

"I... Okay, well you just. You see. It's not. Jess! You're stepping on my future wool rug and distracting me," he says, rolling his eyes at her. "Look, you can't put it into words, but you do know when you know. Do you -- Do you know? With  _Nick_?"

Jess blushes, and then she just nods. "I think I do."

—

Jess didn't cry for three months because it's just Nick and she's better than locking herself up in the house to cry over Dirty Dancing on loop while the rest of her friends are all in-love and Nick's all in-love in New Orleans and...

It's just Nick, but  _just Nick_ is a lot, and one day she's just sitting on her bed with Cece and Schmidt listening to them ramble about the cost of utilities in one-bedroom apartments in Los Angeles, and she starts crying. Just like that.

"Honey, what's wrong?", Cece asks, inching forward with concern (and a tissue she grabs off of Jess's night table).

"Babe, she's obviously crying because she doesn't want us to move out. It's okay, Jess. We're actually going to take a loft vote tonight -- two "Yes"'s and we're staying."

Cece grits her teeth at Schmidt. "Absolutely not."

"Yeah, absolutely not," Jess says through a sniffle, lifting the tissue Cece hands her up to her eyes and swiping underneath them. "Look, I don't -- I don't even know what's wrong. Okay, no, I do, but like, how stupid of a reason is 'Nick and Reagan'. This morning he talked about buying a ticket to see her up in Canada in three weeks and I wanted to throw up into my cereal, but I don't -- I don't have a right to do that. He's happy and he thinks the door is closed so maybe I should just... close it."

Cece wiggles her eyebrows, and it prompts Jess and Schmidt to both say her name, and then Jess says, " _No_. I know what you're going to say, and my answer is 'no'."

"Jessica! If he knew that door was open, you wouldn't be breaking down in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday. Schmidt, honey, back me up," Cece says, turning her head over at Schmidt and flashing him 'Cece Eyes'. (It's what everyone calls it; Cece flashes these eyes that only work on Schmidt, every single time.)

"I'm not getting involved in this," Schmidt says, waving Cece and Jess off with a hand. "This whole situation is messier than Nick's bedroom, and that's saying something."

"You're already involved!", Cece retorts. "Come on, why shouldn't Jess just... tell him how she feels?"

Schmidt clears his throat and inches up closer to Cece on Jess's bed, setting a hand in her lap. "For the same reason you didn't tell me: You didn't get in the way of my relationship with Fawn even though you wanted to. I mean, I saw the way you checked me out sometimes, you just -- You wanted to break yourself off a piece of Schmidt all  _over_ this loft."

"Did not! I was  _so_ subtle," she argues, smacking her lips together and looking back over at Jess. "Look, babe, just tell him when you're ready to tell him. Or don't. I mean, I don't think he's planning on like, marrying her anytime soon."

Jess's stomach turns at that, but she trusts Cece and she even trusts Schmidt, so she stops crying and tells herself it'll happen the way it's supposed to happen.

—

Halloween weekend is the worst weekend of Jess's adult life. (Yes, worse than the time Nick punched her in the face at that haunted house and Sam rejected her proposition to take things further. Worse than that.)

First, Cece and Schmidt sign the lease to their new apartment, and as happy as Jess and Nick and Winston are that they don't have to live with a married couple anymore, they're really going to miss the hell out of them. They move out the day before Halloween, and even though they're across the hall in 4C because nothing else worked out for them ( _"Sorry Schmidt, that four-bedroom with the two balconies and jacuzzi tubs isn't happening."_ ), 4D feels stupidly empty on October 30th.

Second, Reagan flies into LA for the weekend, until the 1st. She stays in Nick's room even though Jess makes a joke about Cece and Schmidt's room being free, and they have this loud, shake-the-bed sex until six o'clock when the whole gang has to head out to Winston's cat sitter's friend's cousin's roommate's Halloween party. Jess just slips into her  _Game of Thrones_ getup and ignores the way Nick smooches Reagan on the temple when they get into Winston's car.

Third, at Winston's cat sitter's friend's cousin's roommate's Halloween party, Jess has no one to kiss, no one to coordinate costumes with, and she's four Bloody Mary's deep when she watches Reagan slip into Nick's lap and lay there for the rest of the night.

"Hey babe," says Cece, sliding an arm around Jess's backside and handing her a glass filled with Sangria. "If it helps, he never looks at her the way he used to look at you."

Jess takes a sip of her Sangria, and then she bitterly shakes her head. "It doesn't."

"I know, honey, I'm sorry." Cece leans into Jess and kisses her shoulder. "This might be a bad place to tell you, at a weird Halloween party with a creepy dubstep version of  _The Monster Mash_ playing in the background, but Schmidt and I are trying to have a baby."

"What?! Where are you gonna get one of those?", Jess curiously asks, her eyes all wide at Cece. Cece just cracks up and grabs Jess by the wrist. "Before -- Before you handed me  _this_ ," she says, lifting the glass of Sangria up at Cece, "I had  _this many_." She holds up nine fingers, which is very incorrect, and then Cece drags her outside and onto the porch.

"I'm serious, Jess. I mean, I wanted to wait until we were married at least a year, but we -- we want a family, you know? That's the next step. It goes: Marriage, apartment, babies. I think."

"Cece, I'm the last person you should be talking to about the order of doing things. I'm alone and I had  _so_ much liquor. Is this what death feels like?"

"Are you talking about the liquor," Cece starts, snatching the glass out of Jess's hands and putting it up on the railing of the porch, "or are you talking about your ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend smooching it up in Winston's cat sitter's friend's cousin's roommate's living room. -- Wait. Did I get that right?"

Jess, impressed, nods and laughs. "What was his name again?"

"I don't even know. I don't trust him, though. The punch had eyeballs in it."

"I know! I still had so much of it," Jess says, sighing and leaning up against the wall of the house. "I'm happy for you, Ceec. Schmidt too. You guys are going to be crazy-good parents. I mean, you take care of me enough, I should know."

Cece bites the inside of her cheek and leans into Jess. "I'm always gonna be your mom."

"Mom? When the  _hell_ is all of that stuff going to happen for me?", Jess asks, drunkenly grabbing the glass Cece hid from her off of the railing and taking a long sip. 

"Hey, no, don't say that. Jess, there's no time limit for you, okay? If it's not Nick, then it'll be someone else, and you'll be  _so_ happy. I promise, babe."

Jess believes her, because she's Cece, but her heart drops into her stomach at the thought of 'not Nick', and then she asks Cece to drive her home.

—

Things are weird in the apartment, and Jess blames it on the fact that she can't be alone with Nick anymore without thinking about  _everything_.

"Is it weird I kind of miss Cece and Schmidt living here?", Nick asks Jess one morning when it's just the two of them. Winston is in his bedroom with Aly after a night shift, so they won't be up until four, five PM, and Cece and Schmidt don't usually barge into 4D until at least eleven AM.

"It's not weird. I kind of cry about it all the time," Jess says, grabbing the milk off of the counter and pouring some into her cereal bowl. She sits down next to him at the island in the kitchen and goes, "No laptop, huh. What happened to your daily Skype session with Reagan? I love starting my mornings to the annoying sound of you guys losing connection every five minutes."

"Reagan and I are on a little... Okay, it's not a  _breakup_ , and she called it a break but this isn't Friends, you know? I'm not Ross!"

"You're Chandler, obviously," Jess says, leveling a hand at him.

"And you're  _such_ a Monica," he says back.

" _Obviously_."

"She's in New York for work for a little while and she says as much as she likes being with me, it's getting 'distracting'. Whatever that means."

"Not to be a dick here, but I think it just means:  _distracting_."

Nick laughs and points a finger at her. "'Not to be a dick', huh? Try harder next time, J-Day."

Jess blushes at the nickname, and then she inches in a little closer to Nick, dropping her spoon into her bowl of cereal and folding her hands on the countertop. "You deserve more than that, and I know you probably don't want to hear it because it's Reagan and you're obsessed with her and all that, but you do. You're not a 'distraction'; you're a good boyfriend because you care enough about her to sit there and listen to her ramble about boring pharmaceutical stuff all morning."

Nick laughs at that, but Jess just goes, "Seriously! I know it's probably ninety-nine percent because she's pretty and has a vagina, but how can  _anyone_ stay awake through all of that? Doesn't she ever want to talk about... I don't know. Does she watch  _Game of Thrones_?"

"That's the one with Hogwarts, right?", Nick asks, tilting his head.

"You're hopeless. Do you seriously think Hogwarts is a real place, Nick?"

He shrugs his shoulders and says, "Jessica, I've  _been there_ , okay? Schmidt and I got really high in college one time and I remember, we went to Hogwarts. You wouldn't know because you only smoke weed every ten years and I'm  _still_ pissed off that I missed High Jess."

"Keep me around and nine years will go by like  _this_ ," she says, snapping her fingers at him. 

"Jessica," he says, his voice a little more serious this time, "I'm never letting you go anywhere."

—

Jess stays in the next night and watches movies with Aly and Winston, but by 11:15 they're asleep on each other with popcorn still in their lap (and in Aly's hair), and Jess lowers the volume on the TV and gets her coat.

The bar is empty, probably because it's a Wednesday and it's a week before Christmas and everyone is too poor from shopping to afford even the cheap booze at The Griffin.

Nick's the only one behind there, and he jumps when Jess approaches him. "Hey. I thought you guys were watching crappy Christmas movies," he says, biting the inside of his cheek. "Want a drink, Jess?"

She's more honest with a little booze inside of her, so she takes him up on that offer and goes, "Old Fashioned."

"I know," Nick says, and then a minute later he slides two of them down onto the countertop and goes, "Cheers."

"I know you don't like talking about things, and we don't have to talk about it, but I just figured I'd try," she says, taking a long swig of her drink.

"I don't know, I don't want to talk about her, about Reagan. Maybe we can talk about the fact that Winston's actually in a successful relationship with a girl who doesn't make me want to punch myself in the face, or the fact that Cece's  _definitely_ pregnant but she's not telling us yet, because I checked out her boobs at work the other day by accident and they're definitely bigger than normal. All of our friends are doing so...  _good_ , you know?"

Jess takes another, longer sip of her drink, and then she nods slowly. "I know. Like,  _so_ good."

"Hey, that doesn't -- That doesn't mean you're not doing good, Jess, I didn't -- I didn't mean it like that," he says, suddenly leaning over the counter and rubbing her forearm, apologizing over and over. She waves him off and tells him it's fine, that she doesn't take offense to it even though her life is  _crap_ lately, but Nick refuses to let her say that it is. "You're smart and you're beautiful and you're going to make a hell of a wife someday. You have a life plan for  _everything_ , Jess. That's solid wife material."

"That actually doesn't matter, none of that stuff. I don't  _want_ a plan for everything, Nick. I want stuff to happen, and I want to have to deal with it like a normal person, and it doesn't even  _matter_ if you don't have a checking account. Nothing like that matters, and I'm sorry I let it matter so much before."

Nick catches it a little too late, and then he narrows her eyes at her and goes, "Wait, what do --"

"We broke up because your plan didn't match mine, and that's just... It's  _stupid_." She laughs when she says it, but that's probably the booze. (Or, it really is stupid.)  "None of that stuff should matter, you know? Cece and Schmidt, they didn't plan exactly the moment to create life, but now there's like a ninety-nine percent chance she's knocked up, and that's  _great_!", Jess shouts, slamming her fist down on the counter of the bar. (Yeah, definitely the booze.)

"Okay, so it's not just me who noticed the boobs thing, right?", Nick asks, and Jess starts to laugh and tells him she looks at Cece's boobs all the time. 

"Jess," he says after a minute, after you could hear a literal  _olive_ drop onto the bar floor, after the juke box stops playing a song and the traffic outside dies down to a halt. She raises an eyebrow at him, and he's still leaned over the counter, his elbows almost touching hers. "Nothing is wrong with you because you had a plan, you know."

"No, but something is wrong with me for thinking something was wrong with you because you didn't."

—

At Christmas Eve dinner, Jess goes to fill up Cece's wine glass and then Cece shakes her head, and then Nick jumps out of his seat and goes, "WE KNEW!"

"Me and Jess knew because we looked at your boobs," he blurts out, and Schmidt races over to his wife in a panic and tucks a napkin into her dress and goes, "You're done looking. Both of you horn-dogs.."

"Okay, so I'm pregnant, but stupid  _Miller_ spoiled that already," Cece says, rolling her eyes as she gets attacked in hugs by Aly and Winston. 

"Ceec," Jess calls out, clinking her wine glass and standing up in her seat, "I'm so happy for you. -- You too, Schmidt, even though you're not really doing much of the child-growing or whatever."

"Hey, my sperm is responsible for fifty percent of that child, give him credit!", Schmidt shouts, holding his hand to his chest like he's appalled. 

Winston says something about how everyone is growing up,  _for real_ , and then he mentions something like: "Me and Aly are gonna babysit to practice, because I can't  _wait_ to knock her up!"

"Booze. You had too much. Shut up." Aly leans in and kisses him anyway, though, and when Jess watches them, she really hopes Aly is the girl Winston marries.

"Hey, need my help?" Nick leans over the sink and turns the faucet on, grabbing a glove and a dish. Jess never said she needed anyone's help, but she doesn't protest, she just stands on the left side of the sink and washes spoons. "A kid. They're having a freakin' kid." He blows out his cheeks, and then he goes, " _Wow_ " as if it's so unbelievable a married couple managed to create a baby. 

"Schmidt as a dad. Ha. I can just imagine the baby being born and him holding it up in the hospital like they did in that scene in  _The Lion King_ ," Jess says, laughing under her breath. "They're gonna be great. Both of them."

Nick silently agrees and keeps on washing the dishes on his side of the sink. "Hey, so I know I said I didn't want to talk about it, but I did want to thank you."

She drops the fork she's washing and presses her lips together. "For...?"

"For what you said to me in the bar the other night," he says. "It made me feel better about not having my crap together."

Jess points at herself. "I'm the Queen of Not Having Her Crap Together, as of lately."

Nick shuts off the faucet and slips off his glove, and then he waits for Jess to take off hers before he grabs her hand in his. He circles her knuckles with his thumb, and the whole apartment feels quiet even though Aly and Winston and Cece and Schmidt are in the living room playing that knock-off version of Monopoly Tran left at their place and screaming about Schmidt bending the rules.

"This may be too much, but Jess, you're worth having a plan for, you know," Nick tells her, and she feels him squeeze her hand a little bit.

She gulps and doesn't say anything, and then she blames the next part on all the pink wine she had with dinner.

She bats her eyes at him, and he puffs out his cheeks, and then she leans in to kiss him on the mouth but she misses. "Oh my God. I'm so embarrassing."

He laughs and says, "You got my... Arm? I think?", and then tells her not to worry about it. "Look, I would've kissed ya', if that's -- if that's what you were goin' for, but not -- not like this, okay? We're both drunk and also fifth-and-sixth-wheeling our coupled-up friends."

Jess just blinks a few times and ignores how hot her face feels. "Oh. _Oh_. You and Reagan are back together, aren't you?"

Nick just blurts out a small, "I'm sorry, Jess, I should've told you."

"Why? No, it's okay, Nick. You don't owe me anything and I can't expect you to be alone just because I am." In her head, she's screaming  _Tell him you idiot tell him you idiot tell him you idiot_ , but she's also ten seconds from passing out on the kitchen floor due to embarrassment, and all that.

"We're easing into it," he says. "I'll know how serious she is if she actually shows up tomorrow on Christmas, but for now we're -- What's a texting-only relationship called?"

"I want to say what I think it  _should_ be called, but I'm holding back," she says, taking a few steps back from Nick and opening up a bottle of Aspirin that's sitting on the counter. "Headache," she says, pointing at the bottle when Nick looks at her with concern. "Merry Christmas, Nick."

Nick tugs down on his lip, and the look on his face tells Jess he wasn't done talking to her for the night, but she has a headache and she's also dying inside and she's not in the mood for knock-off Monopoly or any more pink wine or Reagan-talk. 

"Jessica," he says slowly, and she turns around. "I just... Nothing. It's not important. Merry Christmas, Jess, okay?"

"Okay." She gives him a little wave and heads for her bedroom, but then she turns around and just looks at him.

"Jess, I told ya': Not important."

"No, but this is: Even if she does show up here, it might be nice, but it doesn't make her The One, and I'm not just saying that because I drunkenly tried kissing you in the middle of our kitchen. I don't -- I don't want to talk about how I feel. This is about you, Nick. You think Reagan's settling for you? How about this? You're settling for her!" Her voice gets a little louder now, and she hears Cece and Winston say something and then get up from their game of knock-off Monopoly. "You're settling for a few Skype calls a week, or -- Oh, now it's  _texts_ , and 'I might show up''s, and that's not  _fair_ , Nick. That's not fair to you! You deserve someone who doesn't pencil you in on her oh-so-busy schedule of selling stupid medicine, okay?"

Nick swallows thickly and just stares at Jess for a few seconds, and then he says, "Okay."


	2. Me Before You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically, I'd love to see Nick and Jess get back together midseason instead of in a Cece-Schmidt-Season-Four-Finale-Repeat Way, so that's why I wrote this fic the way I did. Can you blame me for wanting to see half a season of them as an actual, no-nonsense couple?
> 
> To all of you who read my stories: Thanks so much! (And then some.) <3

Jess takes it back. New Year's weekend is the worst weekend of her adult life.

Reagan didn't make it for Christmas -- ( _"Snowed-in. Canada is horrible. Everyone's too nice to yell at each other in this damn airport. You're right to be scared of it, Nick."_ ) and Jess sat down with Nick on the couch in the living room on the night of the 25th and let him cuddle up in her favorite quilt and mope about it. They watched  _A Christmas Story_ in complete silence, but they laughed at all the same parts. (Jess's favorite part is when they Triple Dog Dare that kid to stick his tongue on a frozen pole; Nick's favorite part is when they get the Leg Lamp in the mail.)

But now it's December 30th and Reagan surprises Nick late at night at the front door of 4D, and he picks her up and kisses her flat on the mouth and tells her he almost thought they were over for good.

Jess watches from the kitchen, zoning out of the cookie-baking contest she didn't even know she was apart of. Aly and Winston bet they can top Jess's baby angel cookies from last New Year's, and she's so sad she almost doesn't care if they do.

"Hey," says Aly, putting Jess's rolling pin down on the countertop and grabbing her by the shoulder. She gets flour all over Jess's apron, but Jess is too busy staring at the way Nick wiggles Reagan's coat off of her and kisses her again. "They're not gonna last, Jess."

"Yeah," Winston agrees, sliding over to where Aly and Jess are standing. "Reagan's probably gonna die alone."

"Winston!", Aly shout-whispers.

"Sorry, I'm still bitter about the fact that she "forgot" to answer my text about switching Furguson to dry food the other day."

—

Everyone rings in the New Year together. They had plans, all seven of them, but Sadie and Melissa's New Year's Eve party got cancelled because their son got the flu and sneezed all over the hors d'oeuvres. 

It's a good thing they stay in, because Cece starts throwing up at around eight, and Nick makes a dumb comment like, "I thought it's called  _morning sickness_ , you weirdo", and then a cranky and pregnant Cece tells him she hopes he's not alive to see 2017.

"Hey," Jess whispers, knocking on the bathroom door after she's already in the bathroom. Cece's hunched over the urinal because Jess guesses she couldn't make it to the toilet. "Nick's so stupid."

"The stupidest," Cece says, grabbing the sides of the urinal and shakily standing up. "Ugh. This kid better be  _cuuute_."

"It will be," Jess says, wrinkling her nose. She walks over to Cece and helps her up, and then she grabs a towel and wipes Cece's mouth for her. "Hey, should I blow myself up right before midnight so I don't have to watch Nick and Reagan kiss, or would jumping out of the window work better? I might break a few bones, but at least I won't be a  _total_ goner."

"Babe." Cece's voice gets all serious, and she takes the towel out of Jess's hands and swipes at her mouth some more. "Why didn't you tell him how you felt on Christmas? Schmidt walked in to you two sleeping on the couch together at six in the morning. You can't tell me that's nothing."

"It's nothing," Jess says, widening her eyes at Cece.

" _Babe_."

"He was just -- He was  _so_ sad about Reagan not showing up, so I just let him sit there and... I don't know...  _be sad_. I wanted to comfort him, but what would've that let to? Another embarrassing arm-kiss?"

"A  _what_?", Cece asks, clearly confused.

"I kissed his arm on Christmas Eve because I meant to kiss his mouth but I missed or he moved or  _something_."

"Jessica! You didn't tell me that," she says like she's offended, throwing the towel down on the bathroom floor and folding her arms across her chest.

Jess rolls her eyes. "I didn't want to take the attention away from you. You're pregnant, Ceec. We were all so excited for you."

"Pregnant, schmegnant. This kid has its whole life to hog all the attention. Jess, why didn't you tell me you tried  _kissing him_? What were you thinking?! You can't just kiss him without telling him  _why_ you want to kiss him so bad."

"Ugh." Jess runs a hand through her hair in frustration and shakes her head, thankful that at that very moment, the other five occupants of their loft were drunkenly dancing to a Flo Rida song in the living room. "Cece, sometimes I want to scream at him about how much I love him, and other times I want to say absolutely nothing; just... kiss his stupid face off."

"Well." Cece widens her eyes and strokes Jess's arm. "What makes you feel that way?"

"For the first time in my life, I can't put something into words," Jess says honestly, angry at herself for that. (She's kind of  _the_ person who puts everything into words even when most people can't. It's what she lives for.)

Cece grins, and Jess shoots her a look of confusion and goes, "What?"

"You  _do_ realize what you just said to me, right?" Jess shakes her head 'no', and Cece wiggles her eyebrows. "Jessica,  _tell him_."

—

It's 11:42 and Aly and Winston finish eating an entire batch of their  _winning_ baby angel cookies, and then Winston wraps an arm around her backside and goes, "Well, goodnight y'all. To another mediocre year. We all gonna  _die_!"

"It's not even midnight," Cece points out, pouting at the both of them and waving them back over into the living room. "What about your New Year's kiss?"

"Cece, honey, we're participating in a little thing called a: New Year's  _bang_. Look it up. -- Oh wait, you stopped having sex after Schmidty planted his seed in you, I forgot. My bad, my bad, my bad."

Schmidt slams his beer down on the coffee table and yells, "I'M NOT TAKING ANY CHANCES, WINSTON! I'M NOT IMPREGNATING MY BABY!"

Aly waves goodnight to everyone and then yanks Winston into his bedroom.

"They're wild," Nick says, pointing at Aly and Winston as they both fiercely shut Winston's bedroom door and not-so-subtly get right into it. Aly screams something at Winston about taking his clothes off  _right now_ , and Winston screams something back like, "Only if we bang against the door!"

"Yeah? I don't know, a New Year's bang sounds fun, don't you think?", Reagan asks teasingly, running a hand down Nick's chest. "Come on, we should --"

" _Not_ ," Jess interrupts abruptly, and Cece and Schmidt widen their eyes at her. "Nick, can I -- Just -- It'll take two minutes."

" _What_ will?", asks Reagan, climbing out of Nick's lap and onto the couch. She pulls the throw blanket off of the two of them and just looks at her boyfriend in confusion.

Nick sits up and rubs his chin and goes, "Y-Yeah, that's -- Okay.", and then he lets Jess lead him out of 4D and up to the roof and neither of them say anything for a minute.

"I'm so sorry I ruined your New Year's bang," Jess says, shivering as they make it up to the roof and realize it's a lot colder in Los Angeles than either of them thought. She's only wearing her cloud pajamas, no layers.

Nick shrugs and goes, "It's only 11:45, so..."

"Maybe this is selfish of me to do it  _right now_ , because it's New Year's Eve and you're all  _happy_ , I think, or -- I don't know if you're happy, Nick. You cried three times during  _A Christmas Story_ the other day."

"Ralphie is an inspiration, Jessica," he says seriously.

She bites the inside of her cheek and stifles a laugh. "I know."

"When you say 'it', Jess, what's -- what's ' _it_ '?", he asks, shoving his hands in the pockets of his pajama pants and huffing at the blow of cold air that hits him in the face.

"I -- Have you ever tried to say something but you just like, -- you couldn't put it into words no matter how hard you tried to? Like, when someone asks you what you love about your mom --"

"Makes great beef stew, sang me Elvis songs before bed until I was seventeen years old, let me get three pet rats once. Your point?"

"Fine, maybe you're better at it than I am, but when --" She pauses and gulps, but she's not even sorry about interrupting Nick's New Year's bang right now, and she hopes Cece and Schmidt are helping Reagan forget all about it downstairs. "I love you for a whole bunch of reasons, but every time I try and put them into words I can't."

Nick freezes in his spot. Jess wonders if he's thinking about the time, or her, or  _them_ , or something else. He just stares at her for a second, and then he says, "Jessica, if I knew that door was open for even a second, I would've never -- Reagan --  _You_ \--"

Jess fiddles with the buttons on her pajama shirt. "I know, it's not your fault. I'm the idiot who didn't say anything."

"I'm with Reagan now, Jess. I can't just... You know. I can't just look at her and say, "Well, Jess finally loves me, see ya'"."

Jess gulps, and it actually hurts. She doesn't know whether it's the cold air outside, or the fact that Nick just...  _you know_... "It'd be a bad thing to do to someone, I get it."

Nick nods, his hands still in his pockets, and then he turns around to walk downstairs. "Hey, you coming?"

Jess shakes her head. "I think I'm gonna ring in my New Year up here on the roof. It's cool, it's chill, it's fine."

He nods again, his nose scrunched. "Happy New Year, Jess," he says, obviously a few minutes too soon.

At 11:58, someone opens the door, and everything inside of Jess screams: "NICK!", but it's just Cece and Schmidt with a beer in each of their hands and a throw blanket, and they both sit on each side of her.

"I'm sorry, J," Schmidt says, handing her the beer he's holding. He drapes the throw blanket across all three of their laps, and Jess leans her head onto his shoulder. 

"It's your first New Year's as a married couple, and it's like, 11:58..."

"11:59," Cece corrects her, holding her phone screen up to Jess's view. 

"Go downstairs and kiss, you weirdos!," she yells, shooing Cece and Schmidt away.

"Every kiss with this one is a big one," Schmidt says, pointing at his wife who's blushing at him. "Who needs New Year's Eve, you know?"

"Stop, don't be cute in front of me," Jess says jokingly with a whiny voice, and then she covers her eyes. "Go ahead, kiss right over me."

"Shut up, Jess. We don't care about midnight, we care about _you_ ," Cece says, poking Jess in the side. 

Down the block, they hear screaming. It's a countdown, and people are going, "...TEN...NINE...EIGHT..." obnoxiously.

On 'ONE', Cece and Schmidt both lean into one of Jess's cheeks and smooch her, and in the moment, she doesn't even think about Nick.

"You guys really are going to be the best parents ever, you know that?"

Cece shrugs modestly, but Schmidt nods and goes, "Duh."

Jess and Schmidt drink the rest of their beers, and then she climbs into bed back at his and Cece's apartment at 12:25 and sleeps sandwiched in between them, because she can't sleep across the hall from Nick tonight.

—

Reagan tiptoes out of Nick's bedroom early the next morning, and only Cece and Jess are in the kitchen, eating eggs and talking about the obnoxious fireworks that kept them up all night.

"You were still spooning me though," says Cece, and Jess just wrinkles her nose. She's a professional 'Spooner. "Reagan?"

Reagan's in a pencil skirt and a tucked-in shirt and heels, and she's hastily wheeling her luggage behind her. 

"I thought you weren't leaving until the third," Cece says, raising an eyebrow at the way Reagan is moving through their kitchen, scurrying to zip her luggage shut all the way and grabbing a banana off of the counter.

"Change of plans. They need me at work and I'm not saying 'no' to a thousand-dollar-deal to stay in bed with my boyfriend for the next three days," she says quickly.

"Well, wait," Jess says, stopping her. "Why not? Nick was really looking forward to you being here this weekend."

"Was he?" Reagan laughs a little, almost bitterly. "Jess, he left me right before midnight to go talk to you on the roof in the cold. That's not 'looking forward to me being here', is it?"

"He -- He went back down before midnight, though."

"Ha." Reagan rolls her eyes, but Cece vouches for Jess and goes, "Reagan, he wasn't up there with us at midnight."

"Well he sure as hell wasn't with me," she says. "He actually didn't come to bed until like, I don't know,  _two_?"

Jess wants to ask so many more questions, and by the look on Cece's face, she does too, but neither of them say anything back.

"Look, I don't know what's gonna happen with Nick, but I do know that my job is more important than sitting in this loft and pondering it for the next three days. Tell him I'm sorry."

"He doesn't  _know_?", Jess asks, and Reagan just shakes her head and goes, "Thanks for the banana. I guess I'll... see you guys."

—

Nick is still sleeping at noon, and Jess would usually knock or not even bother attempting to get in his room before three, four PM, but she can't not try today.

"Come in," he mumbles sleepily, and Jess opens his door and finds him underneath a pile of covers. "Hey, Jess. Greetings. Happy Year of New."

"Nick, what time did you get to bed last night?", she asks, sitting down on the edge of his bed and ignoring the fact that she definitely just sat on a can of ginger ale.

"Why, am I grounded?"

"Nick, I'm serious. Reagan said you didn't go to bed until two and now she's gone and didn't even tell you she was leaving and -- I'm sorry, but why are you with this girl?"

Nick sits up now, and his eyes get less sleepy and more serious. He rubs his lips together and looks at Jess for what feels like ten minutes to her, and then he says, "I don't know, Jessica."

"O...kay."

"After I left you up on the roof I took a walk. I was half-sober, so I was fine, you know? I actually bumped into Tran and he calmed me down while I was crying. He's a guardian angel, that one."

"Yeah, that's Winston's theory, too. He doesn't think he's a living human being; just a ghost sent down from heaven who trolls park benches every once in awhile. Wait.  _Crying_? Nick, Reagan's cool and all, but she's not worth crying over, not after the way she just left you without saying anything."

"Jess. I don't -- I can't -- Okay." He's laughing now, and Jess isn't. She's just confused as hell. "I can't put it into words, but I was upset over  _you_."

"Over... over  _me_ ," she repeats, more of a statement than a question.

"I let my best friend ring in the New Year on a roof by herself, in the cold, after not saying "I love you" back to her. I'm an idiot, and I don't know why you love me."

"Stop. Stop with the whole, "I don't know why people like me; I'm not amazing; I'm nothing special" thing. Besides, I rang in the New Year happily tipsy with Schmidt."

"With _Schmidt_? Where was Cece?", he asks, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Oh, she was there. She was just stupidly sober."

"Well, God, I'd hope so. Isn't she pregnant?"

"That's still a thing, yeah," Jess says, laughing through her teeth. "Nick, I didn't need to hear an "I love you" back, okay? That's not why I said it."

"Okay, sure, I know, but Jessica --" He pauses, and then he looks at her and grabs her hands into his. "It's never going to happen with Reagan no matter how many times I tried to make it happen with Reagan. You know why?"

She doesn't, so she just shakes her head and thinks about all the ways Reagan might actually be a better person than she is. (Then she thinks about the dipping in the morning, the stealing their last ripe banana, etcetera, etcetera, and she changes her mind.)

"Reagan isn't you."

"So..."

"Reagan," he repeats, squeezing her hands tight in his, "isn't you."

—

New Year's Day is a good day in Jess's adult life.

They fall asleep on the couch at seven PM watching  _The Honeymooners_ marathon because Nick's dad used to watch it with him as a kid and he kind of likes it. They wake up at around eight to four gasps, and then Winston shouting, "NO WAY!" over everyone.

"Is this... Or did you just... Is this  _just_ sleeping?", Schmidt asks, and he starts to circle around the coffee table in a panic.

"It's just sleeping, man," Nick answers, and everyone groans in disappointment. "With my girlfriend. Who I'm back together with. For good."

"Oh my God!"

"Winston, you owe me money!"

"Oh my  _God_!"

"Please tell me you didn't stain the leather, Nicholas!"

"My  _money_ , Winston! I knew they'd get back together this year."

"It's the first day of the damn year, Aly! Contain yourself!"

Nick kisses Jess on the temple, and then he carries her into his room and tells her he loves her as he sets her down on the bed.

"The thought of not spending the rest of my life with my best friend made me sick," he says honestly, and Jess shudders at his words because she's been trying to explain the feeling for months. 

"Nick, be honest with me," she says, sitting up and wrapping both of her arms around Nick's shoulders.

He bites down on his lip and goes, "Anything, Jess."

"Is Tran the one who helped you realize that?"

"Actually, no. I started talking about you and he just made a bunch of racist jokes and let me drink his beer."

"So you came up with all of that on your own, huh?"

"Jess, I knew the entire time, I was just testing you."

"No you weren't, Nick."

"No, I wasn't," he says, and now he's hovering over her and kissing her face all over. "But now I have you, and we're not messing this up."


End file.
